Today during the General Audience, the Pope took as his subject Eusebius of Caesarea, the 3rd-4th century church historian.
Full text translation here – (scroll down)
He begins with a bit of biography, then an explanation of structure and aim of the Church History .
Then:
The citation which we just made from the first book of the Ecclesiastical History contains a repetition which was surely intentional. Three times in the space of a few lines, he uses the Christologic title of Savior, and refers explicitly to "his mercy’ and ‘his benevolence.’ Thus we can grasp the fundamental perspective of Eusebius’s historiography: it is a Christ-centered history, in which the mystery of God’s love for man is gradually revealed.
With genuine wonder, Eusebius acknowledges that "among all the men of this whole world, only Jesus has been called, professed and acknowledged as Christ [which means Messiah and Savior of the world], who is remembered by this name by both Greeks and barbarians, who continues to be honored today by his disciples spread throughout the world as king, admired more than a prophet, glorified as the true and only priest of God; and more than all this, as the pre-existing Word [Logos] of God, a being before time itself, who received from the Father an honor worthy of veneration and is worshipped as God. But the most extraordinary thing is that those of us who are consecrated to him celebrate him not only with our voices and the sound of words, but with all our spirit, such that we consider the witness we bear of him to be more important than life itself" (1,3,19-20).
Thus emerges in the foreground another characteristic, which will remain constant in early church historiography: the ‘moral purpose’ that presides over the narration. Historical analysis is never the end in itself; it is not made only to make us know the past; rather, it points decisively to conversion, to an authentic testimony of Christian life on the part of the faithful. It is a guide for us as well.
In this way, Eusebius poses a lively challenge to believers in all eras about how they approach the events of history, particularly that of the Church. He asks this even of us: what is our attitude about events in the Church? Is is that of someone who is interested out of simple curiosity, or perhaps in search of the sensational and the scandalous at any cost?
Or is it an attitude of love, open to mystery, the attitude of one who knows – through faith – that he can trace the history of the Church for the signs of God’s love and the great works of salvation he has fulfilled?
If this is our attitude, then we can only be stimulated to a more consistent and generous answer, to a more Christian manner of living so that in turn we can leave signs of God’s love for future generations.
"There is a mystery," the eminent scholar of the Fathers of the Church, Cardinal Jean Danielou, never tired of repeating, "There is a hidden content in history…The mystery is that of the works of God which constitute in time the authentic reality, hidden behind appearances…But this story that God realizes for man, cannot be realized without him. To pause in contemplation of the ‘great things’ from God means seeing only one aspect of things, that to which man responds" (Essay on the mystery of history, Italian ed, Brescia, 1963, p. 182).
From a distance of so many centuries, Eusebius of Caesarea even today invites believers, invites us, to wonder, to contemplate in history the great works of God for the salvation of man. With equal vigor, he invites us to conversion. Indeed, before a God who loves us as he does, we cannot remain inert. Love demands that our whole life should be in imitation of the Beloved. Therefore, let us do all we can, so that we too can leave behind, with our life, a transparent trace of God’s love.
Hmmm. I thought he would be taller.
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